The year 1896 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

• Final volume of Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West.
• The New York Times publishes its first book review section, which evolves to become The New York Times Book Review.

New books

• Max Beerbohm - The Works of Max Beerbohm
• Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Tales from the Telling House
• Ren Boylesve - Le M decin des dames de n ans
• Joseph Conrad - An Outcast of the Islands
• Hall Caine - Jan the Icelander or Home, Sweet Home, A Lecture Story
• Marie Corelli
  • The Mighty Atom
  • The Murder of Delicia
  • Ziska
• Edouard Estaunie - L' empreinte
• Harold Frederic - The Damnation of Theron Ware
• Antonio Fogazzaro - The Patriot
• Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Madelon
• Jules Girardin - Les aventures de M. Colin-Tampon
• Sarah Orne Jewett - The Country of the Pointed Firs
• John McCoy - A Prophetic Romance
• William Morris - The Well at the World's End
• Robert Louis Stevenson - Weir of Hermiston
• Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer, Detective
• Paul Val ry - La Soir e avec M. Teste
• Jules Verne
  • Facing the Flag
  • Clovis Dardentor
• Mary Augusta Ward - Sir George Tressady
• H. G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau
• Owen Wister - Red Men and White
• Emile Zola - Rome

New drama

• George Ade - Artie
• Anton Chekhov - The Seagull
• Henrik Ibsen - John Gabriel Borkman
• Alfred Jarry - Ubu Roi

Poetry

• Alfred Edward Housman - A Shropshire Lad

Non-fiction

• Theodor Herzl - Der Judenstaat
• Charles Monroe Sheldon - In His Steps: 'What Would Jesus Do?'
• Andrew Dickson White - A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

Births

• January 7 - Arnold Ridley, dramatist and actor
• January 14 - John Dos Passos, novelist
• February 12 - Dorothy Frooks, author and publisher
• February 18 - Andr Breton, Surrealist poet and author
• April 16 - Tristan Tzara, poet and essayist
• May 3 - Dodie Smith, novelist and dramatist
• June 6 - R. C. Sherriff, dramatist
• July 19 - A. J. Cronin, novelist
• July 25 - Josephine Tey, crime writer
• August 28 - Liam O'Flaherty, novelist and short-story writer
• September 24 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (died 1940)
• October 11 - Roman Jakobson, linguistic theorist
• October 30 - Ruth Gordon, actress and screenwriter (Adam's Rib)
• November 10 - Kate Seredy, children's author

Deaths

• January 8 - Paul Verlaine, poet
• January 17 - Lady Llanover, patron of the arts in Wales
• June 8 - Jules Simon, philosopher
• July 1 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin author
• July 11 - Ernst Curtius, historian
• July 16 - Edmond de Goncourt, dramatist
• August 17 - Mary Abigail Dodge, essayist
• October 3 - William Morris, poet, novelist and designer
• October 8 - George du Maurier, Trilby author
• November 26 - Coventry Patmore, poet
• December 10 - Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize for Literature

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